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  • 6/17/2025
Vultures are known for their unsavory food habits, scavenging and eating rotting dead things. That is why no one was too sad when a painkiller for cows which proliferated in India in the 90's was poisonous to the birds who ate the remains, however their resulting disappearance had unintended consequences.
Transcript
00:00Vultures are known for their unsavory food habits, scavenging and eating rotting dead things.
00:09That's why no one was too sad when a painkiller for cows which proliferated in India in the 90s
00:14was poisonous to the birds who ate the remains, causing a severe downflux in their populations.
00:19However, according to a new study, the disappearance of those creatures had massive sweeping consequences.
00:25Researchers found that without the vultures to eat the dead remains of cows,
00:28as the country does not have adequate incinerators to get rid of the dead animals by other means,
00:33diseases spread rapidly from the carcasses of the deceased animals.
00:37This spread first started amongst other scavenger creatures like dogs,
00:40but eventually spread to humans as well, drastically increasing mortality rate.
00:44According to the data, just 10 years after the introduction of the cattle painkiller,
00:48the mortality rate in areas that used it rose some 4.7%.
00:53That equates to around 100,000 extra premature deaths every year.
00:57This also had a financial cost, as every citizen provides economic value to the community.
01:02With the study concluding that the disappearance of the vultures resulted in a $69.8 billion hit to the economy,
01:09the researchers note that areas that did not rely on the vultures for carry and disposal
01:13did not see the same increase in mortality rate.

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